


once upon a time... (it was made for us)

by ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/pseuds/ByTheAngell
Summary: Princess Clarissa Fairchild dreams of a boy in a tower, one who calls to her for help night after night. Every time he calls out to her, begging for help, asking him to save her.She isn't going to let him down.
Relationships: Clary Fray & Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern | Sebastian Verlac, Clary Fray & Jonathan Morgentern, Clary Fray & Luke Garroway, Jocelyn Fairchild & Clary Fray, Magnus Bane & Clary Fray
Comments: 19
Kudos: 36
Collections: SHBingo





	once upon a time... (it was made for us)

**Author's Note:**

> For my Shadowhunters Bingo square: Fairy Tale AU (based on the scene where Clary tells Jace she used to dream of a boy in a tower asking her to save him, when she realizes the dreams were of Jonathan)

Clary isn’t sure when the nightmares began. They bring deep creases of worry to her mother’s eyes and forehead, though Jocelyn always soothes her fears by telling her over and over that they’re only dreams. They can’t hurt her, and most importantly - they are _not_ real. 

The problem is that they _feel_ real. The details of a tower she’s never seen before are too intricate, too _familiar_ , to be entirely made up. The voice in her head that cries for help - cries to her specifically, using her name, reaching out to her with voice and arms alike - too distinct to be only in her head. 

She’s told not to tell anyone else about the nightmares, and for a while, she doesn’t. Clary sees the boy, she hears his screams, and for a while she simply looks away, hoping that if she ignores them in her mind they’ll go away. Instead, she only wakes up feeling guilty, memories of his screams plaguing even her waking hours. He’s being held there by an Evil Queen. Had he told her that? She doesn’t think so. She’s only ever heard him cry out for help, begging and pleading, but this new fact she knows now with great certainty. 

The next few times the nightmare comes to her she tries to help, attempting to climb the tower, scaling the sides of the sleek stone the best she can. Each nightmare she gets a little farther up, a little closer to the prince in the burning tower. 

Had he always been a prince? Had the tower always been on fire? Clary isn’t sure. She’s long since stopped questioning the dreams. 

She tells only her mother of the dreams until her mother, more distraught with every retelling, begs her to stop. 

So Clary breaks her promise to not talk to anyone else about them. She has to - she needs to tell _someone_ or they’re going to drive her insane. She sketches the scene that haunts her sleep, showing it to others, waiting for them to ask her where the inspiration came from so she has an excuse to talk about it. About _him_ \- her Prince in his burning tower. 

They do notice. They ask, and she tells, eager for the opinions of others, until one day Lady Dorothea catches sight of her showing a drawing to one of the castle’s servants. 

“Do you know what that is?” she asks Clary, pointing to the drawing. 

“It’s from my dream,” Clary says vaguely. Normally she would have no problem trusting Dot, but she’s close to her mother, and if her mother doesn’t want her talking about this then she can’t be sure where Dot stands on the matter. 

“It’s not a dream,” Dot says. “It’s a _nightmare_. That tower, that place… you’d do best to forget it, Clary. Edom is no place for Princesses, even in dreams.” 

There’s something forboding in her words that tells Clary this isn’t just helpful advice, it’s a warning. 

“Does your mother know about this?” she asks, and Clary, too afraid to lie, nods. 

“She used to, at least. She made me stop talking about them, so I draw them instead.” 

Dot turns and walks away without another word. Clary wonders if she should be afraid, but all she can find it in herself to be is thrilled because now she has a name: Edom. 

\---

Clary makes it to the edge of the kingdom before they realize she’s left and come after her. She hasn’t done anything like this before - running away, seeking out a kingdom she’s never even heard of before, let alone been to - so she doesn’t cover her tracks or leave at the right time to avoid being noticed and followed. 

When they bring her back her mother is waiting, along with a man she’s never seen before. When he looks to her it’s with a flash of cat-eyes - a warlock. 

“I’m not here to hurt you,” the warlock says, holding his hands up in front of him. It’s meant to be an act of reassurance but Clary backs away from the sudden movement, fearing what magic those hands may unleash. 

“He’s a friend. He’s here as a favor,” Jocelyn says. There’s an edge to her voice as she nods to a guard and the door closes behind Clary. 

“What kind of favor?” 

“He’s going to take away some of your memories,” Jocelyn tells her. “It’s for your own good. Those nightmares of yours, the things you’re seeing, the things you’ve learned… they’ll only hurt you. I’m only trying to protect you.” 

Clary struggles against the men who grab her by the arms and drag her into a chair where she’s strapped in, unable to move. 

“Please, don’t - the boy, I have to help him. I have to save him!” Clary pleads, kicking out every time they try to come near. 

“What boy?” The warlock asks, hesitating. “She never mentioned a boy any of the other times.” 

Other times? What-- how many times have they done this to her?

“Magnus,” Jocelyn snaps. “I didn’t hire you to encourage this, I hired you to put an end to it.” 

“There’s a boy,” she says quickly, hoping that maybe the warlock - Magnus - will listen this time. “He’s locked in a burning tower by an evil Queen and-” 

“Magnus, now!” Jocelyn practically screams, her tone frantic now. 

“I’m sorry, biscuit,” Magnus says with a fond sense of familiarity, and he truly does look sorry as deep blue tendrils of magic reach out toward her, and everything goes black. 

\---

It isn’t long before the nightmares return, except that Clary doesn’t know that they’re returning - to her they’re new, calling out to her all over again. The first few times she wakes up she barely remembers having them. She mentions them to her mother who bristles and sends her away. When she returns, still eager to talk about what she saw in her nightmare, she overhears Jocelyn arguing with Lucian Graymark. Clary presses herself back against the wall to listen, staying out of sight around the corner. 

“They’re back already,” Jocelyn sighs. 

“So soon?” Luke sounds worried. “I told you this was a bad idea. You can’t keep wiping her memory like this.” 

“What else would you have me do? She tried to _find him_ the last time, Lucian! But that’s impossible because he’s _dead_.” 

“Is it impossible? Or are you so unwilling to consider the idea that he might be alive that you’re putting your own daughter’s life at risk in the process.” 

“I am not,” Jocelyn insists stubbornly. “She’s safer this way. We all are.” 

“Is she? Because she remembers. She’s going to keep remembering. And maybe she’d be better off if she knew _everything_ so she could make her own decisions rather than running off after things she only knows half of.” 

“No. Absolutely not. I’ll tell her… one day. When she’s ready.” 

“When she’s ready, Jocelyn? Or when you are?” Luke asks, and Clary hears the click of her mother’s shoes against the stone floor echoing down the hall as her only warning that she’s leaving rather than continuing whatever fight they’re having. Clary tenses, listening closely for a second, only to hear the steps fade - her mother went down the hallway on the other end of the room rather than coming in her direction, and she heaves a sigh of relief at not being caught eavesdropping. 

Or so she thinks. 

“Clarissa,” comes Lucian’s voice, and all of that relief is replaced by enough tension she forgets to breathe for a second as if stiffening and holding her breath might make her invisible to the man standing in front of her. 

“How much of that did you overhear?” he asks her. 

“Enough,” she says defiantly. 

“Good. Then I’m not breaking my promise to your mother not to tell you anything if you already know,” he says, and though there’s the hint of amusement in his tone at that his face is still far too serious for Clary’s liking. 

“The boy in my nightmares, you know who he is, don’t you?” she asks. 

“Possibly. The last time you had the dreams you began drawing pictures of them. The resemblance is… well, too much to be a coincidence, I think, if you’re the one getting visions of him.” 

Clary’s eyes widen at that. “Visions? But they’re just-” 

“Dreams. Yes. Maybe they are… but maybe they aren’t. And if they aren’t, then the more you know about them the more you’re going to be able to prepare yourself for what’s to come.” Luke’s words are forboding, and Clary doesn’t like the implication of them one bit. 

“What _is_ to come?” she asks, trying to sound much more fearless than she feels just then. 

“I think you’re meant to save your brother.” 

\---

The weeks that follow seem to drag on for ages. Lucian tells her things about her family’s past, about a brother they thought was dead, but who may have just been taken out from under her mother’s nose. 

“You mustn’t think too ill of her,” Lucian insists softly. “She had no reason to believe otherwise. Even when you started having your nightmares… she truly believes him dead.” 

“But you don’t,” Clary points out. 

“I’m not willing you rule out the possibility he’s alive,” Luke corrects. “Your father was a clever man. Cruel, but clever. If he wanted to take him...” His words trail off there, unwilling (or perhaps unable) to elaborate further. 

“Each time Magnus takes your memories away the dreams seem to come back stronger and more frequent, as do your desires to decipher them and save the boy in the tower. Feels a lot like destiny to me, doesn’t it, kiddo?” 

Clary nods. “I have to help him. I _can_ help him, I know I can! Just tell me what I need to know.” 

Her brother, Lucian tells her, was experimented on with magic as a baby. He had powers they did not understand and could not control. He was different - the dangerous kind of different. And his name was Jonathan. 

Clary studies in secret - she learns the routes between here and where Edom is meant to exist, though none from their kingdom have ever dared to enter there. Dragons rain fire down from the skies, demon-like creatures with inky black skin that circle the land. The Queen - Lilith - is sent to be a warlock of her own right, though none have come back from their quests to find her to confirm or deny. 

To many, that’s more than enough confirmation. 

She also trains in secret. Lucian is friends with one of the knights who teaches her the best he can in the cover of night, working through hand-to-hand combat and weapons maneuvers not normally given to the women of the court. It’s a good thing she’s a quick study. In fact, with some more training, she’s told that she could easily be one of the better fighters in her family’s kingdom. 

That’s good, she thinks, because she’s going to need all the natural skill she can get. 

\---

_The next time Clary has a nightmare she screams the name from the bottom of the burning tower as she dodges the flames to try and find a safe place to climb._

_“Jonathan!”_

_“Clary!” He cries back, and though he’s screaming she can see, just for a moment, the pleased look cross his features at the sound of his name leaving her lips._

_“Tell me who’s keeping you here!” she tries, wondering if she’ll remember when she wakes up even if he does tell her._

_Jonathan opens his mouth to speak but the word is choked off in his throat, and he’s pulled back, away from the window, with an invisible but violent force._

_“I’m going to find you,” she promises, even as she feels herself slipping. “I’m going to save you.”_

_And then she falls._

\---

It’s several more weeks until Lucian tells her she’s allowed to leave. She starts to suspect he may just be stalling, that he’ll never allow her to leave and seek out Jonathan, but then why risk going behind her mother’s back as much as he already has? She forces herself to be patient, all the while dreaming of the Prince in the tower - of her _destiny_. 

And then, one night, it’s time. “You leave in an hour. Get your armor, Hodge is readying your horse.” 

Clary’s ready - she’s had a sack packed with essentials since they started planning, one she’s switched the rations out from every other day to keep them fresh and ready at a moment’s notice. 

They’re nearly outside when Luke adds, “And I have a friend to accompany you on your journey for extra protection.” 

“What?” Clary demands. “No. Taking someone with me was never part of the plan. I can’t risk-” 

“Trust me,” Luke insists. “Magnus isn’t a risk. You’ll need him once you cross the border into Edom.” 

Clary freezes at the sight of the yellow-eyed man sitting atop a black horse next to her own white mare. 

“Magnus - the same Magnus who keeps _taking my memories_?” Clary hisses. She can’t think of a bigger risk, and to be left alone with him so far from home, from the safety of anything familiar--- 

“I’m sorry for what I agreed to do for your mother in the past,” Magnus says, bowing his head. “It wasn’t right. I’m here to make amends.” 

“Luke, I don’t know if I can trust him,” she whispers so only Luke can hear. 

“Then trust me, Clary. He’s here to help.” 

She doesn’t have much of a choice - he’s here now, and she can’t waste another minute waiting around to argue. 

“I trust you. And thank you, Luke. For everything.” 

She double-checks the daggers sheathed at her hips, the armor around her torso, and slings her pack over the back of the horse before mounting it herself and taking off under the cover of night, with Magnus by her side. 

“I’m coming, Jonathan,” she says under her breath as she urges her horse on faster. 

\--- 

Most of the travel is surprisingly easy until they cross the border into Edom at daybreak. There’s nothing officially marking it, but it becomes obvious as the ground begins to grow dry, shifting from grass to dark reddish-brown earth which only seems to grow leafless, twisting trunks of what can hardly be considered to be proper trees. Even the sky seems to take on a golden-red hue behind dense clouds. 

“This way,” she says, turning them to the left. 

“How do you know?” Magnus asks, raising an eyebrow but following her without hesitation. 

“I just… do. I can feel him. In my dreams, it always felt like I was being drawn to that tower, to that boy, whether he’s Jonathan or someone else entirely. I feel the same pull here, only stronger.” She doesn’t have a single doubt that her instincts are right. 

They travel in that direction for what feels like hours, though it doesn’t seem as if the world around them changes at all. The sun should be rising, moving throughout the sky, but instead, it hovers steadily over the horizon. It’s disorienting. 

The first time Clary hears a dragon screech overhead she freezes. It’s much larger than she imagined, and if it weren’t for Magnus there’s a good chance she’d be dead before she ever reaches her prince in his tower. 

Instead, Magnus sends a bolt of magic straight through the creature’s heart. It looks as if it disappears within the dragon, but then she sees it - the faint, pulsing blue from beneath its skin. The magic is killing it from the inside. She has to turn her head away as it tears the creature open to destroy it. 

“I-” she stammers, pulse racing, hands shaking at her sides. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. I’m here for a reason, remember. Let’s keep going.” 

They continue on, for how long Clary doesn’t know. There are more dragons, along with other creatures that are somehow more horrifying though they crawl along the ground. This time she’s far more useful in dealing with them, putting her weapons training to good use. She’s infinitely grateful for Luke sending Magnus along, however - without him by her side she would be dead at least a dozen times over. 

Finally, just when Clary is starting to wonder if they’ll have to attempt a camp to rest, they see the tower in the distance. In her dreams, it always stood alone, the focal point of everything she saw. But here, in person, it’s attached to a much more sprawling structure. The castle has torches lit up along the sides of the exterior, and the windows of the tower itself are lit with flames as well. And there, leaning out of the window, crying for help - 

“Jonathan.” Clary breathes out the name as his pleas echo across the barren land to where she and Magnus pause. 

“Help me! Someone, please! Help me!” 

Dragons circle the tower, too many of them to count. 

“If you want, you can stay here, Princess. I can try and get close enough on my own to-” Magnus starts to offer, but Clary cuts him off. 

“No,” she says, taking a deep breath to steady her trembling voice. “It has to be me.” 

“Very well,” Magnus says. “I’ll provide cover. I can’t portal anywhere I haven’t been before, which means I can’t get you into the tower itself. I could drop you above it, but that’s far too much of a risk. What I _can_ do is get you back faster: take this.” 

Magnus reaches into a small pouch tied to his waist, pulling out a necklace that looked like a colorful shard of glass. 

“Once you get to Jonathan, I can open a portal for the two of you to jump through from the tower. But listen closely: you _must_ be in contact with one another, and with this shard. Understand?” 

Clary nods. There’s so much pressure on her now, not just to make it to the castle but to get to the tower, to convince Jonathan she’s there to help, and to get him to jump through a portal with her that she isn’t even sure will work because all she has to go off of is blind faith in the man giving her a magical portal necklace. 

It’s a lot. It’s _too much_ … but she doesn’t have a choice. There’s no turning back now, not when she’s so close. Leaving her horse behind with Magnus she takes off at a run towards the castle. 

As predicted, dragons spot her coming from a mile away and begin to descend on her. Magnus makes short work of them each and every time - after the second one, she stops looking up in fear at every screech and simply trusts him to have her back. She deals with the creatures that come at her from the ground, with blades through hearts and heads, aiming for where brains and major arteries should be or slicing at legs to keep them from chasing after her as she leaves them behind, wounded. 

When she reaches the bottom of the castle and looks up, the tower with the boy in it looming ominously overhead, she doubts herself more than she has at any other moment of this journey. It’s the first time she’s truly alone, even with Magnus watching from afar to keep the dragons at bay. He can’t help her climb, he can’t keep her arms from shaking with the effort needed to find every grip and pull herself up. She pauses more often than she’d like, for longer than she’d like. 

“Clary!” the boy in the tower calls down to her. “Is it really you?” 

She wonders if he’s dreamt of her as well. Perhaps her nightmares were his dreams of reassurance and comfort that there was someone out there, someone coming.

“Hold on, Jonathan! I’m almost there.” 

There’s no reply - instead, it goes eerily silent above her. The screeching and flapping wings of the dragons cease entirely. Jonathan is no longer calling out of his window to her and something doesn’t feel right. She continues to climb, her progress slow but steady until her fingertips grip a window ledge. 

She expects Jonathan to be there waiting - instead, a female’s hand with long, black nails reaches out to grab her by the wrist and pull her up as if she weighs nothing. Blood red lips and narrowed eyes framed by long black hair are what greet her instead. 

“Well, well, well,” the Queen says, her voice dripping with amusement. “I stand corrected,” she says, gaze turning toward the corner of the room where Jonathan sits huddled on the floor, a fresh burn covering his left cheek. “Looks like you tricked a Morgenstern into taking interest in your pathetic pleas after all.” 

The woman pulls Clary in through the window and drops her to the floor, but Clary is quick to spring to her feet. She readies herself for an attack but it doesn’t come. The Queen walks back towards Jonathan, grabbing him by his shirt and forcing him up. 

“Stand in the presence of a Princess,” she hisses. 

“Sorry Mother,” Jonathan mumbles, wincing at the pain of moving his lips as they pull at the burned flesh on his face. 

“Let him go,” Clary demands, daggers pulled and ready at her sides. 

“Or you’ll do what, little girl?” The Queen asks, arching an eyebrow at her. With a flick of her wrist, the dagger in Clary’s right hand is flung from her grasp, out of reach. “You have no _idea_ who you’re dealing with. He isn’t worth it. Leave now and I’ll spare your life.” 

Clary looks to Jonathan who stands, shaking, behind the Queen, defeat written in his hunched shoulders and the way his eyes remain trained on the floor. Her heart breaks for him and the knowledge that he believes his mother’s words, that he’s not worth saving, that he expects Clary to turn and leave to save herself. 

“You’re wrong,” Clary says. “He is worth saving, and I’m not leaving without him.” 

Jonathan stands a little straighter at that, looking over at her in disbelief. 

“That’s where _you’re_ wrong,” the woman says, bringing her hand up slowly in front of her. “On both counts.” 

Another swift movement of her hand and Clary feels her feet lift off of the ground, an invisible momentum pushing her back through the open window. She manages to catch her fingertips on the ledge, dangling over the side of the building. 

This time Jonathan _does_ appear at the window, looking down at her as if he isn’t sure whether pulling her back up to face his mother is truly a better option than letting her fall. Clary hears a noise beneath her dangling feet and glances down to see a swirling portal beneath her. 

Magnus. 

Clary looks up at Jonathan with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Do you trust me?” 

Jonathan hesitates, then nods. 

“Then grab by hand,” she says, getting a better grip with her right hand so she can reach her left up towards Jonathan. “And jump.” 

Jonathan’s eyes go wide. “What?! No!” 

“Trust me,” she repeats again, with more urgency this time. She knows the Queen thinks her helpless, that she’s simply playing with them. They don’t have much time. 

Jonathan realizes this as well. “Goodbye, Mother,” he says with a single glance back before leaning over the ledge of the windowsill, grabbing Clary’s outstretched hand and jumping down after her as she lets go. 

Clary grips the necklace shard with one hand, the other holding tight to Jonathan, as they fall through the portal in the air beneath them-

-and come tumbling onto the ground next to Magnus on the other side. 

Clary hears a cry of anguish from the window and sees the Queen in the place where Jonathan stood all those times before, looking down at them. 

“You actually came for me,” Jonathan says, voice full of disbelief. “I saw you in my dreams so many times, and I hoped, but-” 

“As much as I love a good family reunion,” Magnus starts, eyeing the sudden influx of dragons coming from the direction of the castle. “Perhaps we could save the celebrations for once we cross that border home, what do you think?” 

Clary mounts her horse, reaching a hand to help Jonathan up behind her. 

“I think that’s a pretty good plan,” Clary agrees, already spurring her horse forward. “C’mon Jonathan, let’s get you home.” 

**Author's Note:**

> (Find me on [Tumblr](http://bytheangell.tumblr.com) and also on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/By_The_Angell)! <3 )


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